


There's a Pair of Us

by The_Bookkeeper



Series: Hi Qui Custodiunt Ipsum Custodem [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Character Study, F/M, Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-01-27
Packaged: 2017-11-27 01:23:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/656474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Bookkeeper/pseuds/The_Bookkeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Canary Wharf, Rose Tyler does not fall into a deep dark pit of depression and despair. She has a job, and parents, and a little brother, and something resembling a life. She is not, however, as happy as she was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's a Pair of Us

**Author's Note:**

> A companion piece/sequel to In From the Cold, but can be read alone. Intentionally vague, but definitely post-Doomsday.
> 
> I’m nobody! Who are you?  
> Are you nobody, too?  
> Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!  
> They’d banish us, you know.  
> \-- Emily Dickinson

She drifts.  
  
She does not fool herself by thinking that she will never be happy again. She is not a teenager anymore, and already there are moments — when she saves someone’s life; when her little brother smiles at her — when she thinks that maybe this could be a bit fantastic after all.   
  
But she also does not fool herself by thinking that she will ever have what she once did. She will never have the rush of running for her life or her planet or her Universe with no weapon, no backup, no plan. She will never have the thrill of feeling an icy hand in hers and seeing a manic grin that speaks of danger and adventure and adrenaline. She will never have the quiet ache of loving a man who belongs to Time and Pain and the Universe, joy and sorrow so intertwined in her heart that she can barely tell the difference.   
  
So she drifts. She goes to work and comes home and grabs onto her fleeting moments of happiness. One day, she will stop feeling so numb. She will stop having a moment of disorientation when she awakes in a room that does not hum in greeting. She will stop finding the warmth of a human hand in hers strange.   
  
She tries not to dread that day.  
  
On this day, something at Torchwood has gone wrong. She is not sure what it is, but everyone is pouring up the stairs from the basement, so it must be in the laboratories. She leaps down the steps two at a time, thinking vaguely that there may be something wrong with her survival instincts. She hits the floor at the bottom with both feet, and throws open the nearest door.  
  
Everything goes a bit funny, and she is not sure if it is her or the Universe. Everything is twisting a warping and spinning and then —   
  
There are two people that she never thought she would see again. The man who was dead smiles at her, with eyes that are older than they should be but still carry the mischievous glint that she remembers, and steps back. The man who was lost just stares, with his mouth hanging open and his hair on end and his eyes wide and shocked and vulnerable, and she thinks that she has never seen anything more wonderful.   
  
She smiles, and suddenly he is hugging her, and his grip is tight and clinging and more than a little desperate, and the laughter that tickles her ear is high-pitched and hysterical and just this side of sane, but that is alright. In all her time away from him, she never forgot that, as much as she loves him, as much as he cares for her in return, the Doctor is not and will never be whole. He is still and will always be cracked and hurting and lonely, wandering and homeless and lost.  
  
For now, though, they can be lost together.


End file.
